


The Suns Inside of Us

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-07-27 20:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: Sequel toAzula's Search. Zuko assuming his role as Fire Lord has not solved the world's problems, and Azula still struggles to find her place.





	1. Chapter 1

Azula mirrored Zuko as they practiced one of the more advanced firebending forms. They moved in sync through heat waves rising from the hot grounds. Mirages shimmered behind them. Sweat crusted Azula’s headband that still covered the eye the spirit world had given her right over the chakra point. Zuko didn’t wear his shirt, and the scar she had given him was plainly visible. His hair was tied back and he kept his eyes closed as sweat dripped down his skin. The fire burning from his fists scorched the air. Azula’s hands were bare, and not even smoke filtered through her closed fingers.

Mai watched them from the sidelines on one of the stone benches. Her leg was crossed over her knee, and her languid hand waved a fan towards her face.

Azula fumbled with one of the forms that Zuko executed perfectly. It was too hot, and Mai’s stare was too cold. Azula concentrated instead on stoking the air deep in her belly, even though there was no point.

Once they had finished, they bowed to each other, and Zuko thanked her even though she hadn’t done anything, even though she was still a failure, even though she knew they would never reach the harmony from before.

“She still doesn’t trust us together,” Azula said, jutting her chin towards Mai. Zuko, she felt, didn’t trust her either, but it was easier talking about Mai.

Fondness warmed Zuko’s eyes. He even nearly smiled. “Give her time.”

“You’re right, of course, I’m sure. Perhaps we’ll be friends again when I finally regain my firebending.”

His eyes tightened like they always did when she brought up her firebending.

“Haven’t you talked to Katara about helping you find out what’s wrong? She could probably help you.”

Azula laughed despite the chill that went down her spine. “Of course I did.” She hadn’t. “She said, why would I help you when you killed Aang?” It’s what she would have said if Azula had dared asked. Azula paced a tight circle around Zuko as she tapped her chin. “I don’t think she’s forgiven me yet. Besides, I don’t know what she could do. Not even Ty Lee could help, and you know that she’s an expert about someone’s chi. It’s time to face the truth, Zuzu. I’m never going to get my bending back. To everybody’s relief I’m sure.”

“I’m not giving up hope,” Zuko said. “We’ll find a way.”

“Why don’t you go over there and relieve your girlfriend from the boredom of watching us?”

Zuko nodded, and then went to Mai. She rose to meet him, but ducked from his arms. “You’re sticky and gross.” He laughed, and they walked side by side together, probably to the baths.

Azula went to her own rooms, closing the door softly behind her. The window was shuttered against the heat of the day. She removed her filthy headband and put it in the wicker basket to be washed. Her hair, still growing out from when she impulsively cut it at the South Pole, hung in a crooked fringe to her shoulders. With a firm hand, she pulled it into a top knot, securing it with the gift her brother had given her: the hair piece usually worn by the crown prince.

A vase of fire lilies wilted on a desk beside a simple mirror—nothing so grand as the one she had smashed when she had seen her mother. The lilies were a parting gift from Ty Lee before she departed to Kyoshi Island. Azula plucked one of the crackling, drying leaves and held it in both her hands, fingers light and delicate lest they crumble to dust in her palms.

She closed her eyes, and placed herself in a basic fire bending stance, the one all young kids learned first. The one where her feet were wide as they could go. Her thighs tensed at the strain, and she leaned into the stretch.

She breathed in deep, and exhaled from the stomach. The leaf smoked as a circle of fire burn through its center.

Azula opened her eyes as she encouraged the flame to grow, thoroughly encompassing the leaf, leaving nothing but ash in her hand as the fire burned small as a candle flame from her palm.

She raised her hand to her eyes, staring at it critically with one brow raised, lips pursed. The flame’s center was a warm yellow, with no hint of the blue that had once been all her own. Clenching her first, she extinguished the flame and kicked at the fine carpets layering her floor.

Azula always lies.

She snarled as she paced circles. Mai always watching her as she practiced with Zuko, Zuko working with her as they had once done years ago, only this time it was safer. There was no more crying, no more tears. They didn’t lock her away because they didn’t fear her without her bending, and because she was loyal to Zuko because she had helped deliver the New Ozai Society to be tried and judged for their treachery. But they were only willing to extend that little bit of trust because they thought she had no bending.

Azula flexed her hand open, fire sparking the air, barely warming her palm as she cupped the flame.

If they knew her bending was back, pitiful and cold as it was, then that would change. The Azula who could bend blue fire, who could shoot lightning from her fingertips, and the Azula who could not bend at all were not the same person to them. They would call her crazy again if they knew. They would bring her down if they knew. Katara would drown her for good if they knew. And they did not know this new Azula at all, the one that could bend again but only barely. It wasn’t what it was supposed to be.

Zuko may practice his firebending with her not in the hope that she would regain her bending, but in the confidence that she would not, that he was safe from her forever, satisfied that she would never again hurt him with the fire of her breath. Had that not been the reason Aang had taken her father’s bending, so he could never hurt people again?

It would be easy for them to send a message to Aang via messenger hawk if they found out. Please, come quick. Azula can bend again, and she’s crazy and needs to go down.

Her hands shook as she snuffed her flame and hid her fists behind her back. Out of the corner of her eye she looked for her mother.

She had not confided to Zuko that she still hallucinated her mother’s presence, even after her mission to find out what happened to her was complete. Ursa was there, lingering in the corner, commenting on her hair. It wasn’t pretty like it had always been. “No one will love you as much as they love Zuko,” Ursa said.

Azula plugged her ears with her fingers, eyes squeezed shut.

They could not find out about any of it. The moment they did, the calm space she had discovered after her journey would be gone, taken away from her just as her bending had been taken away, and there was no guarantee it would come back to her again, no matter how hard she tried. Especially if Aang got involved. Ty Lee would be gone, and not just gone like she was on Kyoshi Island, but gone-gone. And Mai—Azula shook her head.

She slipped out of her damp clothes and washed in cool water. Wrapped in a silk robe, she crossed the room to her bed, passing her desk as she did so. Writing parchment had been prepped for the next time she wrote a letter. She wrote a lot of them now on behalf of the Firelord—letters to the various governors in the Nation, correspondence with various Earth Nation leaders as they worked out compensation for what the Fire Nation had done to them, strategically removing their troops from Earth Kingdom territory and so on and so forth. The very idea of writing more letters made her yawn, but perhaps she could write one more, one to Ty Lee trying to explain without jeopardizing everything.

But how could she tell it to her when even she herself did not know when it had returned. She had not been able to bend when she had conquered the New Ozai Society. She had not been able to bend in the following weeks. And then, she had started practicing with Zuko and it had come back—not overnight, but so slowly and so gradually she had not known until the flame had blossomed in her hand and vanished just as quickly.

Azula shook her head. That was stupid and silly. No one would believe that. Even she barely believed it. Besides, if she told Ty Lee, then she would tell Mai who would tell Zuko who would tell Aang. She scowled.

She flopped on the bed, covering her eyes with her elbow as she forced herself to breathe in and out.

~*~

“Azula’s hiding something,” Zuko said. He stood in front of his window, arms folded across his chest.

Mai rested on his long couch, the back of her head cradled in her interlaced palms. “Like that’s anything new.”

Zuko sighed. Mai was the wrong person to talk to about Azula, but she was the only person he wanted to talk to about her. Azula had all personally tried to hurt his other close friends, so it wasn’t as if there was someone unbiased he could talk to, except maybe Uncle Iroh, but he was still tending his tea shop in Ba Sing Se. Besides, Azula still hated Uncle Iroh. She wouldn’t listen to him at all. To be honest, Zuko wasn’t sure if Uncle Iroh was the right person for Azula, even though he could not imagine what his life would have been without his uncle.

“She’s hiding something new,” Zuko said. Perhaps she was still hallucinating. He could understand her not wanting to mention that. He probably wouldn’t either. It didn’t help that their family had never been encouraged to share their feelings. Not even life changing field trips around the world could change that. He wished Ty Lee hadn’t gone to Kyoshi Island. She was the only one who had ever managed to get through to her. If it turned out that Azula was hiding something more sinister, he suddenly realized he was very much alone. Katara and Sokka had returned to the South Pole, but they wouldn’t be right either. Maybe Sokka since he had been the first one to warm up to him. But no, he could not ask that of him. Toph had returned to the Earth Kingdom to continue her bending in the arena. He shook his head. He shouldn’t even be thinking about Azula that way. She wasn’t like that anymore. She was probably just lonely. The friends she had were gone, and he wasn’t sure she had made new ones. He wasn’t sure she knew how.

He was alone. It wasn’t fair of him to think that when Mai was right there, Mai who would undoubtedly put her arm around his shoulders should he turn back to sit with him, and yet—it was the truth.

Azula must be feeling the same thing. Ty Lee with the Kyoshi Warriors, Mai still not speaking to her, and this time her father gone too.

Did they even have each other? Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. Aang had given him so many chances, and it had not been easy to earn his and his friends’ trust when he had joined their group. He wanted to trust Azula, he did, but it was so weird having her back. To have her moving in sync with him through the heat of the day. They had not done it since they were children, and they had not done it after Azula had laughed at his broken heart. There were times where he caught sight of her in the corner of his eye, and his body flinched, waiting for her to strike. His back stiffened when she walked softly behind him, skin prickling as she drew breath to speak, preparing himself for her cruel mockery that no longer came though still he waited for it.

With her, it was the electric charged moment between the lightning strike and the thunder. He ran his hand through his hair, pulling so his scalp tugged.

“Stop standing over there and sit with me,” Mai said. He slumped in the cushion beside her. Mai’s face grew sallow as she watched him. “You’re going to drive yourself crazy trying to figure her out. It’s not worth it.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Don’t do anything,” Mai said. “Just wait.”

He scowled. That didn’t sound like a good plan at all.

Mai sighed. “Don’t you remember all that Avatar Stuff you told me about when your Uncle taught you how to redirect lightning?”

Considering Azula couldn’t lightning bend anymore, Zuko couldn’t imagine what that had to do with anything. Still, he nodded.

“So you should listen and wait for the right moment, like Toph does. I think they called it neutral jing or something like that. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Sure she hadn’t been paying attention. Zuko scooched closer to Mai and bumped her shoulder gently with his. “That sounds kind of like what you do too.”

Mai shrugged. “Maybe I wait too long.”

Perhaps that was the right answer for now. He would listen and wait to what Azula had to say and to what she didn’t say. Maybe the right moment to strike would never come because there was no need of it. Maybe that was wishful thinking. Not for the first time, he thought about taking her to the Sun Warriors so she could meet the dragon masters. Maybe they would help restore her bending, and if they did, then he knew he could trust her. He put his hand over his heart, over the scar that Azula had given him.

But he could not break his word to their chief. He would not, no matter how much he wanted to, bring Azula to them.

So they were even. They were both hiding something.

Just like old times.

~*~

“The Harmony Restoration Movement?” Azula glared at a parchment Zuko held out to her. “Doesn’t that sound just a bit too goody-goody? You don’t actually believe that there will be much harmony.” She tapped her chin with her finger. She could name off a good number of nobles who would be less than pleased, and that wasn’t even counting the Earth Kingdom cities that would actually want the Fire Nation to stay. Zuko, of course, would think that of course the Earth Kingdom would jump at the chance to get the Fire Nation out of their territory, but Azula knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that. The Fire Nation had been there for years. Things happened in that time. People changed. Families emerged. She shrugged. Those people for sure would have something to say about keeping things as they were. “Not everyone is going to see this as harmonious. Some of these colonies have been around for nearly a hundred years—do you really believe they haven’t gotten used to each other by now?”

Mai sat silently, except for the soft swish of her knife as she twirled it around her fingers.

Zuko sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What am I supposed to do? I made a promise to the Earth King that the colonies would be removed.”

“So remove the military outposts,” Azula said with a shrug. “They’re the real concern. Who’s going to care about some ancient fat shoe maker who once came from the Fire Nation so long ago he probably doesn’t even remember it anymore?”

“Mai, what do you think?”

Azula paced so they wouldn’t see her frown. Of course he would ask Mai, even though she didn’t have a political inclination in her. Politics were boring, and Mai hated being bored.

“I don’t know,” Mai said. “Does it really matter what I think, or even what you think? The Earth King isn’t going to care about a fat shoe maker from the Fire Nation. Nobody cares about those people. He’s not important in the grand scheme of things. Even you don’t really care about him besides as an example.” Mai locked eyes with Azula. “You don’t even know—or care—if he actually exists.”

Azula scowled again. “I try to calculate all possibilities as a matter of strategy.”

Mai returned to playing with her knife. “Don’t you sometimes miscalculate?”

Coldness seeped into Azula’s fingertips as her jaw clenched.

Zuko stepped between them, and she broke away, hiding her trembling hands in her sleeves. “Do what you want, Fire Lord,” Azula said. “In situations like these, there’s hardly ever a right decision.”

She departed swiftly, though she heard Zuko calling her name. She didn’t want to be in that stuffy room trying to figure out how to make the Earth Kingdom happy, especially since it wasn’t their fault colonies from a hundred years ago were still around. The wrong she was responsible for had already been made right. They should be looking forward, not back. When she was back in her room, she picked up another pamphlet that one of her spies had sent to her. It was against the Harmony Restoration Movement, originating from a colony called Yu Dao. It sounded like trouble, and she crumpled it in her hands and watched it burn.

She drummed her fingers against the desk. Ty Lee would have something cheery and hopeful to say, even though it wouldn’t make her feel better about Zuko asking Mai’s advice. That’s not a bad thing, Ty Lee say. It’s the mark of a true leader to get a lot of different opinions so he knows what options he has open to him, blah blah blah.

It didn’t mean he didn’t trust her.

Azula opened her hand so the flame burned from her palm. It felt warmer than it had ever done, but she couldn’t focus on that.

He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.

But as Mai said, she did miscalculate. What if she was miscalculating now?

There would be no way to find out for sure if he knew and didn’t trust her without betraying herself to him. All she had to do was to keep pretending.

She stretched herself on the bed, curling her fingers in the soft sheets. She closed her eyes. The last time she and Ty Lee had seen each other had been in the spring. Ty Lee had gotten stronger since joining the Kyoshi Warriors. She had been hanging from one of the trees doing pull ups. That’s easy, Azula said, you’ve always been able to do that. Why don’t we make it more of a challenge?

Ty Lee had hung there, her legs gently swaying, mere inches from the grass. She had asked what Ty Lee had had in mind, had asked for Azula to show her.

“A little more weight would do it.” Azula had gone to her, braced her hands against Ty Lee’s shoulders, jumping, so she could wrap her legs around Ty Lee’s waist. Slowly, Azula relaxed her back, hanging against Ty Lee’s legs while her hands were crossed against her chest. “Now we’ll see how strong you really are.”

Grunting, Ty Lee flexed, pulling herself and Azula upwards. Neck craning and jutting, Ty Lee tapped the tree branch with her chin.

“It would be more of a challenge if you went down slowly,” Azula said.

Ty Lee’s face strained, something flickering in her eyes that Azula didn’t recognize. For a moment, Azula wasn’t sure if she was just going to do it or not. But Ty Lee did—as she always did except when she didn’t.

As Ty Lee slowly lowered herself, Azula flexed her abdominal muscles, rising to meet her. Their eyes met. Sweat dripped down Ty Lee’s forehead. Her flyaways stuck to her skin. Azula smiled at her then lowered herself in time with Ty Lee pulling herself upwards.

They did it again, several times, saying nothing because of their exertions. For a fourth time, their eyes met. Ty Lee hung from the tree with her fingernails turning white from the pressure. Her muscles trembled. She didn’t have another set left in her.

Azula uncrossed her arms from her chest so she could cup Ty Lee’s wet hot face in her palms, guiding her so she could more easily press a kiss against her brow.

Ty Lee flushed even more as Azula reached towards the branch, gripping the tree in between Ty Lee’s hands. She uncurled her legs from around Ty Lee’s waist, and found solid ground again. Bark gritted in her palms. Ty Lee let go of the branch and dropped to the grass, breathing hard.

“I told you,” Azula said as she walked away.

She did look back, though, when she was hidden behind the shrubbery. Ty Lee’s long braid hung limp behind her back as she picked tree bark from her palms. Azula hoped she would call her back, but she didn’t.

Ty Lee had left the next day for Kyoshi Island with a bright bye! That didn’t sound like farewell at all. If she was intending to ever come back, Azula didn’t know.

Azula opened her eyes. The coverlets were wrinkled because she hadn’t made her bed in days. Li and Lo had done it for her, but they were gone to Ember Island, not intending to return. We are old, they had clucked at her. We are done working.

They never would have dared leave if her father were the Fire Lord instead of Zuko.

She rolled onto her other side, covers brought up to her chin as her eyes itched. She needed to do something. She rolled out of bed, the covers tangling between her ankles. Her hair hung down loose, and she only glanced at it momentarily before shrugging and moving on.

It was evening, and the air was still warm. Mai was in the gardens, flipping her knife. She was probably thinking about Zuko or about Ty Lee. It was probably Azula’s fault that Ty Lee had gone, and Mai somehow knew it.

Azula shuffled her feet in the grass, and Mai turned her head. “What do you want?”

Azula stood in front of Mai, arms folded across her chest. “I don’t think my brother is fully cognizant of the situation in that Earth Kingdom colony.”

“Probably more than you are.” Mai slipped the knife in her sleeve.

“All these meetings must be so tiresome for you, Mai,” Azula said. “Wouldn’t you like to go to Yu Dao and really seeing what’s going on down there for ourselves. Reports can only be so accurate.”

Mai sat up straighter. The desire to do something instead of just sitting around in meeting after meeting glinted in her eyes. She was predictable in this one thing at least.

“We’ll go as peasants looking for a new life. You can be Fire Nation, and I’ll pretend to be Earth Kingdom.”

Mai slumped back into the stone bench. “Because that turned out so well for you last time.”

Anger sparked through her. “It did turn out well. Ba Sing Se did fall without a single death. It just wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“And this is?”

Azula hadn’t been expecting the question. “I know it’s better than sitting around here. What am I going to do? Conquer some little no name colony that’s already part of the Fire Nation?”

Mai said nothing. Perhaps she did enjoy the luxuries of the palace more than traveling all the way there. Surely she could not prefer her brother’s company over the incessant, unyielding boredom of politics.

“When do we leave?” Mai said.

“Tonight. I’ll leave a message for Zuko, to let him know where we’ve gone and not to follow us. He won’t be happy.”

“When is Zuko ever happy?” Mai rose to her feet, stretching languidly.

Azula didn’t deign to answer the question. It was obvious. Zuko was always happy when he was with Mai. 


	2. Chapter Two

Mai and Azula spoke little as they journeyed to Yu Dao. Ty Lee’s absent chatter made the silence deeper, and somehow worse. So Azula kicked at weeds in the road, and Mai sighed at her. Azula kept an eye on the sky for any messenger hawks from her brother, and around the mid morning, one swooped down and landed on her raised arm. There was a scroll attached to each his legs: one for Azula and one for Mai

Azula unrolled hers with a raised brow, trying to imagine all the things her brother would say to discourage her. Was she really ready for this, he’d ask. Didn’t she remember the last time she’d gone to the Earth Kingdom. Well, it would be hard to forget. The scroll said none of those things though. Only one word was written in large, sloppy strokes in the center of the page. “Stupid.” Azula laughed

Mai’s scroll was incredibly longer, and Azula paced a wide circle around Mai as she read. Her wan face grew thinner, and she bit her lip. Whatever Zuko said wasn’t making her happy. Azula chewed the inside of her own lip. What was in that letter? Was it something about the Movement? Was it something about her? Azula’s eyes narrowed. The letter Mai had received was from the Fire Lord while hers had been from her older brother. Azula stood still. Goosebumps pricked her skin, and her breath grew shallow. Zuko still didn’t trust her.

But could she blame him? Did she really want to be involved with the politics of everything when it would be so much easier to just burn everything down? She could do that again, if she tried hard enough, if she wanted it hard enough.

She heard the questions in Ursa’s voice. Azula squeezed her eyes shut and breathed.

If Zuko had a secret from her, then so did she.

When she opened her eyes, Mai was writing a response to Zuko on the other side of the parchment. It was just one word. “Okay.”

“Can I borrow that?”

Mai twirled the pen in her fingers like it was a knife as she handed it to Azula. She wrote back on the back of hers, “Dum-dum.” The hawk stood still for them as they put the scrolls in their small containers and, after a scritch under his beak, he went off with a flap of wings.

They traveled without speaking some more until the evening came, and they decided to make camp under a grove of trees. Azula built the fire, striking the firestones she kept in a pouch on her belt. Mai prepared the rice, and they waited in silence for their meal to be ready. They ate slowly, and then stretched on their blankets. The chill of the evening stretched between them, itching and pulling against Azula’s skin. “Ty Lee forgave me, you know.” Azula kept her eyes on the stars. She didn’t want to see Mai’s face, afraid she would bear the same look when she said she loved Zuko more than she feared her.

“Did she?”

Azula’s belly soured. It was true that Ty Lee was gone because of her new friends on Kyoshi Island. People she was only friends with because of what Azula had done to her—to them. “She’s having fun with her friends,” Azula said. “People are allowed to have friends. I’m sure people would even want to be friends with you if you’d let them.”

“I don’t need friends,” Mai said.

“Let me guess.” Azula propped herself up on her elbow and looked at Mai through the flickering flames of the fire. “Friends are boring?”  
Mai’s profile never wavered. Her chest heaved as she sighed.

Azula scoffed as she settled herself back down. The ground was hard, and a rock dug in the hollow of her back, but there was always another rock doing just that if she tried to find another spot, so she left it alone.

“Zuko thinks you’re keeping a secret from him,” Mai said. “You always have secrets. But I think the secret he fears is that you have your bending back.”

Azula’s belly went cold as she rolled over. Mai was looking at her, her eyes unblinking and glinting from the fire. “I lost my bending,” she said. Azula always lies, but this was the truth. “And I think that if someone feared its return, it would be you.”

Mai rolled her eyes and turned away with her back to the fire.

The flames flickered like memories. Azula realized now that Avatar Aang had tried to tell her that her bending had returned before he left for the North Pole with Katara. She hadn’t realized it then, of course, but that was what he had been saying. She closed her eyes against Mai’s stony silence and the rocks in her back. What had he told her?

He had found her in the garden at the pond where the turtleducks clustered towards its furthest end. She had no rocks for them today, but they couldn’t have known that. They feared her. Once that would have pleased her but now she just wished she had something good for them to eat. He had settled beside her, barely disturbing the grass.

“Hey.”

He looked at her with his soft eyes, not smiling but not frowning either, voice just on the cusp of cracking. It was so hard for her to remember how young he was. He was supposed to have been a hundred years old, not some kid. She didn’t know what to do or how to act or what to say. It wasn’t possible. She had tried to kill him, the Avatar, with lightning. Her skin crackled at the memory of it.

The way the burnt flesh had overpowered the smell of earth and mineral and the damp. She didn’t know what to do next, so she ignored him, eyes fixed on the turtle ducks.

“You were in the spirit world.” He touched center of her forehead, still bound with cloth to cover the eye she had brought back with her.

She jerked away from him because that was how he had once touched her father, and he had been left a just a wisp of his former self without his bending. And even though hers was gone, what else could still be taken from her as punishment? “I’m surprised you’re bothering yourself enough to care. Aren’t you supposed to be busy hating me forever? Not that I’d blame you of course. I did something monstrous.”

“It’s my job to care. I’m the bridge between this world and the spirit world. Do you remember what happened afterwards, when you came back and fainted and didn’t wake up? I did that too. I froze myself in the water and didn’t wake up until Katara accidentally bended me free.” His eyes softened, and he smiled even more softly.

Ugh. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“When Katara examined you, she said your chi was all tied up in knots which is why you couldn’t bend.” He scooched closer to her. “Do you know a lot about bending? How it works?” He hesitated.

“How I took it away from your father?”

Azula shook her head. Normally, she wouldn’t care about such things, but now she did. She had already reconciled to the fact that her bending would not return—to know why would make it easier.

“Chakras!” He smiled brightly at her. “Guru Pathik told me that chakras were like pools of water in a creek. If the water doesn’t flow, then the pools become stagnant. Do you know how many chakras there are?” At her silence, Aang continued. “Seven. I had to learn to unblock them to enter the Avatar state.”

Azula yawned. “So what is the first chakra?”

“Earth, located at the base of the spine. It is blocked by fear.”

_Ursa’s hand pressed against the base of her spine. “Sit up straight, Azula. You’re slouching.”_ She remembered it clearly, from her dreams, and yes. She had been afraid. She was always afraid, in those days, though she hadn’t realized it.

“When I first met you,” Aang said, “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything. But that’s not true. And then I thought you would fear losing your bending the most, but I don’t think that’s true either.”

He looked at her like she was a puzzle to solve, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Then he nodded at her encouragingly. “You’re handling it very well. I’m not sure what I would do if I couldn’t air bend anymore.”

“What’s the next one?” Azula asked.

“Water. Guilt blocks it.” Aang’s cheeks paled as he lowered his eyes. “Guru Pathik told me I had to forgive myself.”

_“It happened,” the dragon spoke with Zuko’s calm voice. “Accept the reality of the things you have done, and move forward. Do not carry them so they poison you. Forgive yourself. It doesn’t matter if no one else will forgive you—you are only responsible for your own actions, your own choices.”_ Once Azula would have laughed but she only asked, her voice strained from all the things she’d done, “What have you done that needs that kind of forgiveness?”

“I ran, and I’ve hurt people as the Avatar.”

She didn’t know if he was talking about her father, but if he was he deserved it. “What’s next?”

“The Fire Chakra in the stomach,” Aang said. He looked at her pointedly. “It’s blocked by shame.”

_Sinking deeper to her knees so they were pressed hard against her stomach, she whispered, “I banished them. I couldn’t trust them. They were going to betray me just like--”_ Azula scoffed. Perhaps that was the decision she was most ashamed by, the one that still haunted her, the one that made her fire burn bright and blue without fading. Even now, she could not think of it without burning, just as she could not think of what she had done to the boy who now sat next to her, sharing his knowledge as if they had always been friends.

“And then there’s the Air Chakra.”

Aang put his hand over his heart, and Azula mirrored the action. It beat beneath her palm, calm and steady, like it hadn’t in a long time.

“And it’s blocked by grief.”

_Ursa continued making the tea with a soft clatter of clinking dishes. “I have always loved you, Azula.” Azula pulled a cushion from behind her and hugged it tightly over her heart, as she hid her face in its depth. If she were alone, she would scream into this cushion and no one would hear._ How could Azula let that go when she still was hallucinating her mother? Seeing her nearly every day, being reminded that she had never even been in her thoughts even in her final moments?

“The Sound Chakra in your throat,” Aang said, moving on because why wouldn’t he when he was like Zuko, beloved by so many—and yet, had he not lost many too? An entire family, an entire nation—because of her family, her nation? “Blocked by lies.

Azula always lies.

_“ I should never have hurt you like that. I didn’t mean to, but I did.” Ursa cradled Azula’s cheeks in her palms and kissed her again on the forehead. “For so long you were told that you were a monster that you acted like one. But, Azula, the time for lies is over. You cannot lie about your own nature. You are not a monster so you must stop acting like one. No more cruelty, no more selfishness, because I know that is not who you are—I believe in you, in the beautiful princess you still can be. You must accept this truth about yourself, Azula, and act upon it, or you will never find happiness.”_ Azula clung to that version of her mother. She always clung to her.

“The next one,” Aang said, “I think you know.” He touched her forehead again. “The Light Chakra. Illusion. We are parts of the same whole though it might appear otherwise.”

“You’re starting to sound like my brother.” Or maybe it was the other way around. But she remembered, she remembered the vision of her father, commanding her, using her. Denying her the parts of her that yearned to live: his daughter, Ursa’s daughter, Zuko’s sister, friend to Mai and Ty Lee.

The room began to fill with a bright light that made Ozai’s flames dim in comparison. Ozai flung his arms to shield his eyes from it. “What is that on your forehead!” he said. “It’s blinding me—Azula, stop this at once, I command you.”

Had she firebended when she finally understood?

She glanced up to look at Aang who was watching her closely. “The last one?”

“The Thought Chakra, located in the crown of your head. It’s blocked by earthly attachment, and it is pure cosmic energy.”

Azula scoffed. “That’s more of an avatar thing than a me thing.”

“The airbenders were all about the Thought Chakra.”

They fell silent. They both turned away from each other and looked at the turtle ducks. She considered the moments before she had woken up thrashing in the water, before she had once more destroyed the mirror. _What beautiful hair you have,” Ursa murmured as she gathered it into her fist and let it flow through her fingers like water. Then she dragged the comb from the crown of Azula’s head, following the curve of her skull, and down the shallow channel of her spine, so long her hair had become._

“After I unlocked my chakras, I was able to enter the Avatar State.”

“So if I do the sames I should be able to bend again,” Azula said.

“Or maybe you already have.” He pointed at the eye. “It doesn’t act like the eye on the sparky sparky boom man.”

The assassin her brother sent after them. What an idiot. “Nothing happened, because I still can’t bend.”

“Okay.” Aang got up, his staff twirling as it became a glider. “Whatever you say.”

So maybe he had known. Maybe her fear that Zuko would send Aang after her was unfounded. But if he knew, if Mai knew, if Katara or Sokka knew—

Azula rolled over so her back was towards the fire, blankets clenched in her fists. She knew Mai didn’t have to forgive her, but she desperately, desperately wanted her to. It didn’t seem fair that the same people whom her brother had hunted across the nations had forgiven him. Maybe, without a shared purpose, they would not be able find common ground.

The next morning, Mai was gone without even a cryptic note telling Azula where she was. Her things were still piled by the fire, like she had started packing then got bored with it and had gone off looking for some other things to do. Azula packed up her own things and waited. The fire had burned low into a smoking pile of embers without the care it needed. Had she been alone, truly alone, Azula would have seen what she could do with a snap of her fingers. But she wasn’t alone. Mai was somewhere, lurking, and she knew that if Mai saw then that would be the end of whatever little thing remained to them.

Mai. What did Azula have to do? She closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply. Lingering ribbons of smoke filled her nose and mouth. If she were Mai, if she had hurt as Mai hurt, what would she do? Technically, she had already done what Mai had done to her. She hadn’t tried to free her father. She hadn’t even tried to speak to him in the prisons of Ba Sing Se. If her father came to her now, a free man, what would she do?

She held her breath in the silence and the stillness. Tried to imagine him—his height, still tall after his humiliation, his ridiculous long beard. If he came back, what would she do?

“Hey.” It was Mai.

When Azula turned toward her, she was only a little bit surprised to see that Mai’s blades were drawn like they had been so long before. But perhaps that’s what they needed to do, to just fight it out and see where they stood when they were done. Of course, it wouldn’t be exactly as it was in that unresolved moment. Then she could bend, but now she wouldn’t because Mai didn’t (and couldn’t) know. Still, she settled into one of the basic, familiar fire bending forms.

“You’re unbelievable,” Mai said. 

If Azula had done something other than waking up, she would probably have agreed with that assessment once a long time ago. Yet she had nothing but get her things in order for their continued journey. Mai shifted and, in the blade of her dagger, Azula saw her reflection. Except she was not seeing her own face, but rather Mai’s, which should have been impossible.

Mai chose at that precise moment to charge. Azula, stunned, reacted slowly, able to dodge the two daggers that Mai flung at her but only just as the blade skimmed her skin. She brought up her leg to kick, but Mai sidestepped closer into her space, hand outstretched as she pushed her palm against Azula’s forehead, bearing her to the ground. Mai screamed, flinging her hand away as she cradled it against her chest. Blisters rose against the skin.

The charred remains of Azula’s headband fell to the ground as Azula scrambled back to her feet. Mai swung away from her, still cradling her hand, breath coming in ragged gasps. “Leave me alone!”  
Azula stepped back, her hands raised in surrender. One of Mai’s knives was by her foot, and the blade showed that her face was again her own.

“You can bend,” Mai said.

Mai’s hand needed to be treated, now. “Let me help with that.”

Mai shook her head, mutinously, stubbornly. “Say it.”

“I can bend.” Azula sighed. Maybe Aang was right, and it was good the lie had come free. She extended her hand, and waited for Mai to give her own. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italicized portions taken from "[The Creek](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7801354/chapters/18744322)."


	3. Chapter Three

Mai’s face hardened as she cradled her hand against her chest. “For how long?”

Azula’s breath hitched. She was still trying to figure out why her reflection had shown Mai’s face. That was new. That was not firebending as she knew it. 

“How long?” Mai’s voice was insistent, cracking as she pushed through the pain.

“Probably longer than I know.” Azula thought back to Aang’s casual, Whatever you say. He had known, that tricky little air nomad. 

Mai curled her lips around her teeth. “Not a real answer.” 

Azula gestured at Mai’s hand. “Why don’t I tell you while I look over your hand. It’ll scar, and you will match my brother.”

Mai shrugged. “I don’t care.” 

“You could have such lovely skin, Mai. Does it even matter what I say? Does it matter when I was able to bend again? I didn’t know until a few weeks ago, and I was scared to say anything because I’ve always been a better bender, that’s all I’ve ever been to anyone. I killed the Avatar with my bending, and I almost killed Zuko.” If Katara had not been there—but that was past, that was done. She wasn’t that person anymore. Azula shook her head. “Aang knew. Probably. If that makes you feel better. He tried to tell me but I didn’t listen. It was probably in the South Pole.”

Mai’s eyes shifted to the side. “The coma. Like Zuko.” 

“Yes.” Azula sighed impatiently. “Like Zuzu. Are you going to let me look at your hand now?” 

Mai sighed, one of the longest sighs Azula had ever heard from her. “Fine.”

Mai sat cross legged on the ground beside the ashes of the fire. She held her hand out. Blisters bubbled on her skin, and her fingers were curved downward. Azula didn’t think she was able to straighten her hand. She sat in front of Mai, and rummaged in her satchel for the salve she started using when she realized she could bend again, but not nearly as well as when she had once been her father’s prodigy. 

Azula touched Mai’s wrists with her fingertips as she examined the burns. “It wasn’t intentional, but I’m still sorry.”

Mai sniffed. 

The ointment smelled sharply of herbs and essences. It blended smoothly in Mai’s skin as Azula rubbed in soft circles around the blister. 

“Your firebending is different.” Mai narrowed her eyes at Azula. Her cheeks were flushed. “How did you do that?”

Azula tossed her head. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Mai sighed. 

“I’m sorry,” Azula said. “I don’t know. The only firebending with the eye that I’m familiar with is sparky sparky boom man.” She winced as the name spilled from her mouth. She didn’t even like Sokka, and yet she borrowed the way he spoke. It was catchy—she couldn’t deny that. “But Aang did say the eye was over one of the chakras, the illusion one. Maybe it’s a different way of firebending that we forgot about.” Or didn’t care about. She had seen her father and her grandfather either burn scrolls they found distasteful or bury them deep in the libraries. 

“It’s so stupid,” Mai said. 

Azula raised her brow. “I agree. It is stupid that you refuse to trust me.”

“It’s stupid you get to be the person to discover a brand new way of bending.” Mai braced the elbow of her unburned arm against her knee, and rested her head in its palm. Her gaze was directed away from Azula, back from whence they’d come, back towards Zuko. “You always thought you were special, the best of all us. But then the world showed you weren’t.” Mai glowered. “That didn’t last long did it?”

Azula laughed. “Careful, you don’t want to sound jealous.” Mai refused to meet her gaze. Azula held her hand still, even though there were no more blisters to tend. “Why haven’t you asked Aang?” 

“Aang?”

“You know.” Azula smiled slyly at Mai. “Surely if he can take it away, he can give it away too. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“I haven’t,” Mai said quickly. A little too quickly, maybe. 

“Of course you haven’t. One couldn’t describe you as particularly passionate. You don’t have a spark in you.” Azula dropped Mai’s hand. Why had she said that? Of course she knew that Mai felt things, felt them deeply, though she hid it under the guise of boredom. She loved more than she feared while Azula— “You’re done,” she told Mai. “I don’t suppose we could get back on the road? We still have a long way to go.”

Mai stood up, and pulled her pack over her shoulder. “I think my parents were disappointed I wasn’t a bender.” 

Azula snorted. “They weren’t benders.” 

“That didn’t matter to them.” Mai shrugged. “When I met you, it didn’t matter to me either.” Mai stopped walking, and turned to Azula, meeting her eyes. Her gaze was cold and listless. “You made me feel like I was enough. I didn’t realize then, of course, that you liked to surround yourself with nonbenders because it made you feel more powerful. You weren’t so…” Mai trailed off. “You were cruel and mean, but not to us. Not to me. I trusted that, I trusted you. You turned against us so slowly I never realized until it was too late.” 

Azula’s throat swelled even though she didn’t know what to say. 

“Your bending has always betrayed you,” Mai said. “It betrayed your thoughts to those who knew what the blue fire meant. It betrayed you in your duel with Zuko, and you were forced to cheat—but he wouldn’t let you. Not because he was a better bender than you, but because he was a better person. You put so much worth in your bending, you were nothing without it—nothing but a shell of unpleasant memories, the sum of every terrible thing you ever did. You were boring.”

Azula clenched her fists behind her back, repeating her brother’s words, whispered to her in a dream. It didn’t matter if they forgave her, only how she continued onward with her life. 

“So it’s a been a long time since I wanted to be a bender. Asking if the Avatar could make me one would never occur to me. Besides, why would I bother him with that when there’s a whole world for him to save.” 

“He’s making a mess of it according to some,” Azula said. It was the easiest thing to say. What could she say other than she was sorry, and she had already said it a hundred times. 

“Let’s go,” Mai said, turning away, and picking up the pace.

They continued in silenced, and Azula focused only on the ground in front of her, on moving forward step by step.


	4. Chapter Four

Mai shivered as she waited for sleep to come to her. The cold always seemed to affect her more than the others, and she always wore long sleeves with a cloak, even in the summer time. Ty Lee wore light garments that showed her stomach, Zuko (when he wasn’t in court regalia) wore simple red garments edged in gold, arms bare, and Azula—she sighed at Azula, and clutched her blanket around her thin shoulders. Her hand burned, the only part of her not technically cold. Despite her thicker sleeping cushion, she could still a feel a rock digging into her hip.

How she hated the outdoors. How dismal the night times were.

Mai peeked over her shoulder. The fire had nearly burned itself out. Azula was a dark shadow beyond it. She, obviously, was having no trouble sleeping. How nice that would be.

“If you’re cold, you could come over here.” Azula’s voice came through like a thin cold line through the night.

Mai huffed. “Death would be preferable.”

“Oh Mai. So many people would miss you.”

Mai sighed. She wished Azula hadn’t said that. Normally, she was able to shrug whatever sarcastic thing Azula said without any lingering wonder about what she really meant but—she had been thinking a lot about Zuko lately. How she didn’t hate him. How she had stepped up with Azula in the South Pole because that was what Fire Ladies did. How she was here with Azula on this journey because that’s also what Fire Ladies did. The endless errands of diplomacy stretched before her, and—

Sparks popped the air, and Mai started. A wave of heat washed over her, driving the cold away. She turned over. Azula, blanket crumpled at her feet, stood over the fire, bending it into flame. She could have just poked it with a stick. The orange light glowed over her skin, the shadows making her third eye from the spirit world particularly visible. 

How Mai hated orange.

How she hated that eye. There was a shadow of it on her palm, from where she had been burned. Had Azula done it on purpose, as a warning or as a promise late fulfilled? Or had it been an unfortunate consequence of her decision to fight when she had seen Azula, with Mai’s face, her face. When would Azula stop taking things that weren’t hers? Mai had seen Azula’s many faces: her mask of friendship, the snarled lip anger of betrayal, and the time her face had been stolen, a blank parchment of skin that revealed nothing at all. That hadn’t been the worst moment, just the most unsettling.

“Go back to sleep, Mai,” Azula said as she sat down next to the fire. “And stop looking at me like that.”

 Mai threw her blanket over her head, but she watched through the threads. Azula could firebend, was firebending right now, and she could do something new and strange Mai had never heard of before, had never seen before. Even when she was supposed to be weak, she was strong. It was what had appealed Mai to Azula in the first place, when they were kids, too young to understand what they needed. 

Azula had already grown bored tending the fire. She held a flame in her hands, performing an exercise Mai recognized from when Azula had been a little girl, before her fire turned blue. She would make a small ball of fire, as small and tight as she could possibly make it, something so smooth that no flickering flames escaped. Azula’s finger twitched, and the orb morphed into what looked vaguely reminiscent of an ostrich horse. It galloped in slow circles around Azula’s palm, until she grew bored of that too. It vanished in a puff of smoke as she dropped her hand back into her lap. 

Yes, Azula did bore easily. She was like Mai in that way. Once, Mai had thrilled to that, but now a dull edge of resentment scraped through her, reminding Mai that she did not want to be like Azula, that she did not want to be friends with Azula. It didn’t matter that Zuko could forgive her attempt on his life, or that the Avatar could—that was their job. They could not fulfill the roles they were destined to fulfill if they could not forgive.

And what of her responsibility, especially if she did what she wanted to do, and stay with Zuko? That would inevitably lead to her becoming Fire Lady, not like Zuko’s mom because she was banished before that could ever become her reality, but that would have been her role. And what would she have done if Ozai had allowed her to become that person?

That night on the beach, when they had confessed and shared and Azula had applauded it as an emotional performance—that night when she had stared into a fire and said that her mother had liked Zuko best, had thought Azula a monster—that was the first time in years that Mai had heard Azula even mention her mother.  

Shortly after Azula had returned home from her coma, saving them all from Mai’s father’s ill conceived attempt to put Ozai back on the throne, Zuko had shown her what Azula had taken from the cave that hid Ursa’s body: a packet of letters Ursa had written to Zuko, but could never send because of her exile. Her hopes for him, her dreams. Her deep sorrow and grief that he didn’t have the support he needed, how she hoped he would become the man and beautiful prince she knew he could be. 

Mai hadn’t understood at first. She had sat on the edge of his bed, the thin sheafs of parchment held delicately in her hand. “I don’t understand, Zuko. These are all very…sweet.” 

That wasn’t the right word. It was actually sad, and terrible, and horrible because she was gone, because Zuko had been denied the kind of maternal support Mai could only imagine, but Zuko didn’t care that she hadn’t said any of those things. 

“She didn’t send anything to Azula,” he said. “She didn’t write to her at all.”

“Maybe she took her letters. Maybe she didn’t want you to read them.”

Zuko paced the room, agitated. “That’s what I thought, but she said she didn’t.” He pitched his voice higher. “Why would she write to me, Zuzu? It’s perfectly fine, I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

“If a stranger read these,” Zuko said in his normal voice, after a moment, “they would have no idea that I wasn’t an only child. I had Mom, I had Uncle, and then I had the Avatar and his friends.” He turned, and looked at her. His hair fell in his eyes, not quite hiding his scar, the permanent lesson his father had tried to teach him.

Mai shook her head. “Stop thinking about this. You can’t change what happened. You have closure now. You know what happened to your mother, you know she loved you with her dying breath.” Literally. 

Zuko stopped short. He looked at her. Not for the first time, Mai felt as she had when he had first come home. When she tried to comfort him, and he pulled away. She didn’t know how to reach him. She didn’t know what to say to bridge the distance. Mai stood up, folded her arms against her chest, and stared at the wall. 

“You’re disappointed,” Mai said. “You’re disappointed that she’s not the mother you remember or that she wasn’t the same mother to Azula.” She knew that disappointment was stretching towards her, because she didn’t feel as strongly about it as he did, because she didn’t want to forgive Azula, and because she didn’t see what the big deal was. 

Zuko nodded. “I just expected—”

“Better?”

Just as she had did then, Mai sighed as Azula’s fire continued to burn warm and bright. Zuko would expect better of her too. It made sense, that he would think this way. The Firelord could not forget someone, could not just turn their back on someone, could not choose to withhold forgiveness. 

And would not the same standards apply to her if she became his wife? 

The orange flames flickered over Azula. Her eyes were closed, but she did not sleep. Her skin seemed to morph and change in the shadows, a glimmer of what appeared to be a scar slid over her face and vanished. The eye in the center of her forehead burned like low embers. Mai grunted. Just what all of them needed, another way for Azula to lie to them. Illusion chakra indeed.

Mai thought of Azula refusing to trade Tom-Tom for Bumi. Thought of the threats she had made. The way she had coerced Ty Lee into joining them on her hunt for her brother and then the Avatar. The way she had, most certainly, intended on burning Mai’s face off until Ty Lee intervened, and then she just threw them in prison to rot. 

Forgive? Mai had no interest in forgiving. 

One day, Zuko would look at her with the same disappointment when he realized that his mother was not the person he remembered. 

One day, he would expect better of her even if he didn’t expect it of her now. He was too busy trying to fix what his father and his father before him had broken. He wasn’t thinking ahead, like she was. 

Maybe that was the real reason she had come on this mission with Azula. Not because she was bored (though she was always bored), but because she had to see if it was possible—without Ty Lee to be in love with Azula, without Suki to sniff around on her moral high ground, without anyone but them.

“I can see you staring at me through your blanket,” Azula said without looking up from the flames. “Go to sleep.” 

Embarrassed, Mai rolled over so her back was to the fire, and squeezed her eyes shut, shoulders hunched. Seep came eventually, and when she did, she dreamed of Zuko—of the scar over his eye, of the way his hair fell to his shoulders, so infrequently did he wear the Firelord flame in his top-knot. 

“I missed you,” she said. They were together on his couch, her head cushioned on his shoulder. 

“I missed you too.”

He pressed a kiss to her brow, and she raised her face to his. His second kiss was on her mouth, and she eased into his presence. It never ceased to surprise her how gentle he could be. Her eyes drifted closed, and she nearly smiled. “That was nice.”

“I know,” Zuko said. 

They kissed again. His hands cupped her cheeks, and Mai’s eyes opened as her fingers threaded through his hair. Zuko’s face shifted, his features shimmering into something smoother, the scar disappearing, sliding away like ink. His hair grew longer, passing through her hands like water. Mai started back, her hands pressed against the chest of the person beside her. “Azula?” 

“Yes, Mai?” Azula smiled as she hung back. Her hands were gentle. “Surprised to see little old me?”

It had been nice, it had felt warm and safe, and Mai leaned forward, her mouth parted to meet Azula. Her hands slid from her chest to her back, pressing Azula even closer. 

Mai’s heart jumped, and she jerked upright, all thought or desire of sleep gone in the memory of the dream. The fire had died again, but the sun had already risen. Her heart rabbited in her chest, pulsing through her skin in a most unpleasant way. She rarely felt like this, not even in the middle of a fight. The last time had been when she had chosen to save Zuko, even after he had dumped her, when she knew that after she defeated the guards, Azula waited for her, Ty Lee beside her. Every instinct had screamed for her to stop, and she had resisted, standing tall and still as Azula warned her of the consequences, on the edge of screaming when Mai said that she loved Zuko more than she feared Azula.

Feared Azula, not loved Azula. 

Mai’s breath shook in her chest as she looked around for Azula, who was sleeping soundly on he side, a little dribble of drool trickling from her mouth. 

It was just a dream. That was all it was. A dream, born from her confused thoughts and feelings. Ty Lee had told her she never let herself feel, and so when the emotion was too strong to cut it down, it expressed itself strangely. 

That sounded right. That explained the dream. Why else would she dream…what she did? 

Azula’s eyes flashed open, startling Mai. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Mai shifted her gaze to a vague, smudgy point on the horizon. Panic rattled her. Could Azula see right through her with that freaky third eye of hers? Azula had already demonstrated one kind of firebending that Mai had never heard of—what else could she do? 

“Did you have pleasant dreams?”

Mai eyed her without turning her head. There was a sly smile on her lips, as if she knew something. Mai would betray nothing, just as she had before. Azula had been taken completely by surprise. It had been satisfying until she had been left in a jail cell, waiting for someone to remember her, to save her, and how she hated that feeling even more. 

Azula was looking at her, head tipped slightly to the side. “You look like something’s bothering you. Maybe you would like to share. Sometimes if you’re able to talk it out, you’re able to see things a little more clearly. Not always though. Sometimes things are confusing and terrible. But you never know until you try.” 

That smile again. 

Azula waited expectantly, as if she actually believed that Mai would share with her, after everything. But after a few moments, Azula shrugged and climbed to her feet. “We can continue on our way after I practice my firebending. We should reach a town soon. A messenger hawk will be available, and you can tell Zuko all about it.”

“Fine,” Mai sighed. She bent down to start packing the few things she had brought. Why were they walking when they could have been riding those awful lizards or riding in one of those tanks? Because that’s what Azula wanted. Even after her “transformation” they did things her way. She finished quickly, and sat on her pack as Azula practiced. 

Azula started with her legs wide, knees bent, eyes closed. All she did was breathe. There was no fire, and Mai wondered why she was bothering to pretend anymore. The secret was out. Mai knew she could firebend. 

Azula leaned into another pose, and breathed. 

Mai heaved a sigh. This was boring and dull. At least before, when Azula had made her and Ty Lee watch her practice, there had been fire, blue fire that Mai had never seen before. Normally colors made Mai feel ill, but Azula’s blue fire had not made her feel that way. 

It wasn’t until what felt like an age into her practice that Azula started to actually bend fire. The blue flames were gone. There were only tightly controlled circles of orange fire that were not very impressive at all. There was no spark, no lightning. Pathetic. Was this what they had all been afraid of? 

Once, when Zuko had been very, very young, before everything, he had bended like that, and Azula had made merciless fun of him. Over one of the summers at Ember Island, he had gotten better. Mai remembered she had desperately wanted to go with Azula on that trip, and just as desperately, Azula had wanted her and Ty Lee to go as well. But Ursa hadn’t allowed it. Their return from Ember Island was when Mai had first seen Azula’s fire burn blue at its center. That was the first summer that Zuko began to show his own promise as a bender. Not that Mai had ever cared about that. Zuko could be the world’s worst firebender (and many had said he was, when he refused to fight his father), and Mai wouldn’t have cared. 

Something said in a voice similar to Azula’s, or Mai’s own mother, a little dash of Ty Lee, a whisper of Zuko— _you don’t care about anything_.

Big blah. 

She fidgeted, stood up. She twirled one of her knives as she walked. There was nothing to do. 

“Come join me,” Azula called. “This one takes two.” 

Mai rolled her eyes. “I’m not a firebender.” Azula had always been fond of reminding her of that. The world had seemed fair, for once, when Azula lost her own bending. And then she got it back because of course she did.

“That doesn’t matter.” Azula was already in the beginning pose. It was that dancing dragon routine. Mai recognized it from when she had watched Zuko all those times in the palace gardens. He had shown it to Azula, and they always finished their practice with it. Azula was right. It didn’t require firebending—at least, not the way they did it. 

Mai had never understood the point of it.

There was nothing to do, and she was bored, and Azula was waiting for her without so much as even a tapped foot or sigh of impatience. Mai tucked her knife away and stood beside Azula, mirroring her pose. 

“You remember?” Azula said. 

Mai nodded. She had watched them frequently enough. They started and, when their movements in the circle put their backs to each other, Azula began to speak—though historically, she had never spoken with Zuko. They had performed it in silence, which was another reason Mai liked it. “After the comet, I couldn’t take a bath without thinking about what had happened. I couldn’t move in the ice. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t bend. I was completely trapped. Water reminded me of it. And even though I knew it wasn’t really happening, even though I knew it was over and I was free, and I could step out of the bath any time I wanted to, I was…scared. Even after so much time has passed, I still feel like I’m there again.” 

“That’s terrible,” Mai said dryly. She knew what Azula was trying to do—sharing something personal so that Mai would open up, so that she would express herself. That was never going to happen again. The last time it had, Azula had laughed. Mai couldn’t remember the time before that. They didn’t talk about their feelings when they had been friends. Why would they start now when they were little more than two people together because of circumstance?

Mai moved into the final form of the dance. Normally, when Azula and Zuko did it, they ended it with their fists nearly touching. When Mai and Azula finished, they were so far apart Mai almost laughed. Mai had also moved more in an oval than a circle since Azula was several meters behind her. Or maybe Azula had sabotaged the form herself by misstepping on purpose. Who could know, since Mai had overheard Zuko once say the dancing dragons was about trust.

“Hmm.” Azula glanced at the space between them. “Let’s go.”

Mai went back to her pack and shouldered it. “I’m already ready.”

“So am I.” Azula smiled at her, one perfect brow raised. “It’s not a competition.”

Since when wasn’t anything a competition with Azula? Every aspect of her life had been about competing. Mai was exhausted, in part because she truly hadn’t slept well and because of Azula. They walked in silence. They did come to a town, and Azula did go straight for the messenger hawks. She scribbled on the parchment, and Mai, even though she knew she probably shouldn’t, read over her shoulder. It just said, _Firebending without burning people?_ Like Azula would ever be interested in that. 

Azula turned to Mai. “Did you want to send Zuko something? I’m sure he misses you terribly.”

Mai sighed, and reached for some parchment. She did miss Zuko, and that’s what she told him in his message. She looked to see where Azula was, if she was doing what Mai had done and read over her shoulder. Azula was on the street corner reading their map. Normally Mai didn’t care what secrets people had. Let others keep them, and get bored by them. But this was Azula--Azula who had shot lightning at her boyfriend and the Avatar. _Azula can firebend_ , she scribbled hastily, before should change her mind. _Weird firebending—illusions with freak third eye, and regular firebending_. She chewed her lip. _No blue flame_.

And then she jotted down, _I told you so_.

Azula said, “Finally,” when Mai joined her at the corner. Then, “Did you tell him?”

Mai walked by her, barely even giving her a glance. “What do you think?” She braced herself for Azula to attack, but after only a few moments, she fell in step, and they continued walking out of town and on and on into the unbearable and dismal horizon.

“Sometimes,” Azula said after a few hours, “I think about that moment in Ba Sing Se.” 

Azula stopped and Mai continued a few paces before realizing. When she turned back around, Azula had on the same expression as she had on the beach, the last dying flames shuttering her face. 

“There was no emotion. I didn’t hate him. But I don’t remember what I was thinking. I just remember bending the lightning. I don’t remember hearing it crackle and spark. And then—I pointed at the Avatar, and released.” She mimed the motions as she spoke. “I don’t remember my thought process, I don’t remember making the decision to do it. He was there, rising, and then he was falling.”   
Mai said nothing. She had not been there. She had been busy digging Ty Lee free from where the blind girl had trapped her in the dirt. She had gotten it under her fingernails. Disgusting.

“It was different with Zuko.” Azula’s arms dropped, her eyes shifting and becoming unfocused. “I knew what I wanted to do. I knew when he broke my root that I couldn’t beat him. And then he taunted me, and I knew I could hurt him more if I attacked his friend.” Azula shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders. She huffed a sigh. “I don’t know which one is more upsetting. The one where it happened without my thinking about it, or the one where I deliberately made that decision.”

Azula was sharing again, though why Mai did not know. Especially these particular two incidents, those particularly horrible two incidents. “You seem to have moved on fine. In fact, you’re lucky that the two people you hurt most forgave you. But there are other people who are still mad at you, and I think that bothers you.” 

“What are you going to do with it, Mai? Do you want to fight me, to pay me back?”

Mai didn’t know. Usually, the anger was easy to ignore. Usually, she wasn’t stuck with Azula sharing her newfound feelings all over the place. Maybe they just needed to do what they had always done. Fight it out, like they almost had on the Boiling Rock. “I don’t know. Leave me alone.”  
They walked on in silence. For days they walked, Azula sometimes mumbling to herself or, worse, singing the same songs that Ty Lee had once sung, but not nearly as well. Mai could not help but wonder if she still hallucinated Ursa, but she did not ask because it was not her business nor did she strictly care. At night, when it turned cold, and Mai could not hide her shivering, the fire sparked to life from its smoldering embers, casting Azula in sharp, contrasting shadows as she bent it. Even with the warmth, Mai slept lightly, afraid the dream would come again.

One late afternoon, Azula spoke for the first time when she pointed towards the horizon. “Yu Dao. We can push through the night and find an inn, or we can sleep here tonight and take our time tomorrow.” 

Mai yearned for a real bed. She did not appreciate sleeping on the ground. And, even though Azula had left her alone, she had not truly been alone. She yearned for that too. But, she was tired. Her legs ached. Her feet hurt. The idea of trudging on into the night dismayed her. “I guess we’ll camp here.” 

Azula nodded. They made their camp, and their meager dinner portions. Mai turned in early but Azula stayed up, tending the fire before it burned low. Mai heard her whisper, “Yu Dao here we come.”

She hoped their arrival would not be as ominous as that sounded. Last time they infiltrated an Earth Kingdom city, they had ended a war. If anything remotely like the last time happened now, it would only start another war.

Mai wasn’t sure if Zuko would survive that. Doubt needled at her. If Azula hadn’t changed, if this was another facade, then this could go very badly for all of them. Azula claimed the Avatar knew her bending had returned, but what if that was a lie too? Mai squeezed her eyes shut.

They’d know soon enough. And whatever Azula did, whatever trick she’d pull, Mai would be ready for it.


	5. Chapter Five

Zuko missed his morning routine with Azula. They normally met in the garden, just as the sun was rising. They would go through the forms together, and it hadn’t mattered that Azula could not bend fire. At least, it hadn’t mattered to him. It had probably mattered to her. He wondered if she would continue practicing on the route to Yu Dao. 

Worry itched at him as he began their routine in the garden.

He shouldn’t be worried about Azula. She was with Mai. And even if she wasn’t with Mai, even if she was on her own, she would be fine because she had changed. Like him, she had chosen to do good.

He chewed in the inside of his lip and wished suddenly, desperately, for his Uncle. His Uncle had been wise, guiding him to the path of good even when he hadn’t realized it, when all that he cared about was pleasing his father, restoring his honor by delivering the Avatar to his father—for what?  
His skin turned cold, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He had been bad longer than he had been good. Even Uncle himself had said that there would be conflict within him forever—and Azula carried that with her too. 

The Harmony Restoration Movement weighed heavily on his shoulders. They had met—the Earth King, Aang, and himself shortly after he was crowned Firelord. They had decided that it would be best to move forward with removing all the Fire Nation colonies that they might return home to the Fire Nation, and that the territory be returned to the Earth King. It sounded like the right thing. Sozin had done wrong by moving forward with the colonies. Surely the right thing to do was to reverse that completely. 

Everyone had agreed it was the right thing to do, even the Avatar. So why did Zuko wonder? He had had doubts before Azula mocked the movement. Of course she would though—she mocked everything, even after she had returned. She hid her feelings behind it, as she always had. In this, she had not changed. 

Should it concern him that he doubted this was the right course of action? Especially if Azula agreed? He regretted the thought immediately. It wasn’t fair to her.

He stopped bending, and forced himself to breathe. He would not let anger or shame or frustration fuel his bending. The grass tickled his bare feet. The sun blazed hotly against his skin. A soft summer breeze moved through his hair. He focused on those things to ground him. 

Why was it so hard to know right from wrong? It had plagued him on the beach (and Azula had laughed at that too), and when he had made the decision to abandon his father and join the Avatar, he thought it would be easier.

But, with the weight of a Nation’s lost honor on his shoulders, it was harder than ever. 

Anxiety threaded through him. His breathing quickened. 

Once, before Aang had left, he had pulled the young boy aside. He wasn’t sure if what he was about to ask was the right thing or not—he only knew he could not follow the path that he had been taught to follow. “If I ever become like my father—or like my grandfather—or like my great grandfather, I need you to take me down. You can't make the same mistake Avatar Roku made.”

Aang had appeared stricken, his eyes wide. No longer wearing the ceremonial robes of an Avatar airbender, he only wore the long draping cloth that sloped off one shoulder. Goosebumps rose on his skin. “What do you mean?” he said in the same voice he had once asked Zuko if they could have been friends. 

Zuko spread his hands. “You figured out what to do with my father. I’m sure you’d know what to do with me if the time ever came.”

“C’mon Zuko.” Aang pulled at his arm. “You’re not like your father. We’ve both learned so much together. We’ve both come such a long way. It’s not always easy, knowing what’s right. And I know that you’ll make mistakes because we all make mistakes. But I know that you’ll try.”

At a loss for words, Zuko had bowed to Avatar Aang. He didn’t deserve the Avatar’s trust, so he would do his best not to betray it—as he had betrayed so many others in the past. 

He hadn’t told anyone what had passed between the two of them that night. Not Mai, not Katara, not Azula. He wished he had. He did not want to be alone with his fear. 

Two messenger hawks flitted from the sky. He held up his wrist for them, and they waited patiently for him to undo their messages. They flapped to one of the nearby trees to preen their feathers until he was ready for them again. He recognized the first one as Mai’s, and the other was clearly Azula’s. He read Mai’s first. 

“She can bend,” he whispered. He lowered himself to the grass, forehead braced against his fist, the parchment laying open in the spread of his knees.

The anxiety crept through him again, the what ifs of what could happen next. The blue flames from their last fight, the crackling bolt of lighting blasting through him, loud as thunder. How he tried to rise when he knew Katara would have to face her alone, and how he had only succeeded in collapsing a second time.

He supposed that the Avatar and his friends had run through the what ifs when he had come to them, even after they had agreed to let him join their group. What if he turned on them again? What if he decided to join Azula on the throne as he had in Ba Sing Se? What if…what if…what if…

He fumbled with Azula’s message, mouth falling open as he read it. Of course he hadn’t expected her to actually tell him, and she hadn’t, but he also hadn’t expected this either. He had expected accusations that Mai was lying or worse, a lie of her own telling him that no matter how hard she tried, she just simply couldn’t bend.

But to see her asking about whether there was firebending that wouldn’t burn another person?

Not for the first time, he thought of the Sun Warriors. Of course there was fire that wouldn’t burn—he had experienced it firsthand at the mouths of the Masters. 

He shook the memories from him. He couldn’t tell her. He had promised. Instead, he composed a very simple reply: _I heard that the dragons could do it, but we know what happened to them_. 

To Mai he wrote that he missed her too, and that he hoped she would be able to return home soon. He did not share how he would wake up sometimes in the night, his heart racing, wondering how he was able to do everything he was supposed to do because he really was still just a kid, a teenager as Aang had once told him. She would not know what to say, and she probably wouldn’t be able to relate. Politics bored her. 

The next missive he received was from Azula a few days later. It talked about the weather (which…when had Azula been concerned about the weather), how the reputation of the metalworkers was not an exaggeration—she had purchased a new knife set for Mai, and then she inquired how their Uncle was doing. 

“Is that it?” Zuko turned the parchment over and under. Had his sister been captured, and forced to send something so that no one would be suspicious? Then where was Mai’s letter?

Or…was the real message hidden? That was more Azula’s way. He wondered if she was aware just how similar she was to Uncle Iroh in that regard. He held the letter in his left hand, and with his right, bent a gentle blaze beneath. The hidden script immediately came into view.

_We are not the only ones drawn to the current political climate here in Yu Dao. A group of freedom fighters, led by some child named Smellerbee, has come all the way from Ba Sing Se to see that those of the Fire Nation removes itself completely. The trouble is, no one knows who the Fire Nation is anymore. There is a large potentiality that the entire city itself could be left a ghost town, though some have propositioned that the split be based on bending ability. I wonder what the nonbenders would have to say about that._

Smellerbee. Zuko recognized the name. It brought back unpleasant memories of his own flight to Ba Sing Se. Smellerbee hadn’t been the leader of their gang then. It had been Jet. And Jet, apparently, had died in Ba Sing Se. 

The parchment shook in his hands, and he huffed for breath. He had just assumed Jet was in a jail cell. But to find out from the Ember Island Players that Jet had died while the audience laughed…

But that was a different life, a promise of a different future if he had chosen another path, if Jet had not noticed a cup of warm tea that had been cold in the space of time Jet had invited him to join his group.

Zuko sighed. The hidden message was gone and he folded it carefully away in case he needed to read it again. At night he lay awake, unable to sleep. His anger on the beach haunted him—what if he didn’t know right from wrong? Azula’s message plagued him. He could feel her disapproval at the Movement growing stronger. He didn’t know what was right thing to do. What if he would never know? 

It was so hard being good, and he was so bad at it. He sat up, the covers sliding from his chest to his waist. He looked down at himself, touched the scar that Azula had left for him, the one that mirrored Aang’s. Azula had struck Aang silently, but she had snarled and laughed when she had shot the bolt meant for him, and then Katara. It rang in his ears still. He wondered how she had even managed to do it. Uncle had said that there must be no emotion, that lightning was the cold fire. That did not seem to match Azula’s mental state.   
Had Uncle Iroh been wrong about bending lightning? 

Zuko swallowed around the lump in his throat. Uncle and Aang were the two people he trusted most, the two people who hadn’t given up on him. Who was he to doubt them, to wonder if they had been wrong? 

The empty expanse of bed stretched on each side of him. He longed for Mai. She’d say something like, What does it matter what they think?  
But it mattered to him. 

He was no stranger to being alone, but it was worse now, in this moment. A few days after Mai and Azula had left, another assassination attempt had been made and shut down by his guard (he hadn’t told Mai yet, or Azula, or Aang). The Harmony Restoration Movement taunted him with how daunting and impossible it seemed, but he could not give up. Azula’s message burned through his skin. Before, when he had been alone, no one but himself was endangered by the choices he made. Except when he accidentally got a boy in trouble by giving him a knife without teaching him how or when to use it.

He could still see his face, the shock, the terror, the betrayal. That hurt, too. And, except for the Avatar and his friends, as he had chased them across the world. 

He flopped back down on the bed, pulling his pillow over his head and screaming into it.

_H_ _ere’s our cover story: Mai is visiting distant relatives. I’m from a nice Earth Kingdom family, and I can firebend (inherited from my father’s side of the family). No one doubted my story or called me a liar. This type of thing is very common here. Perhaps the beginning was bad, but maybe the end doesn’t have to be. Nobody wants half their family sent away from them, never to be seen again. Except maybe us. I’m very happy not seeing Father again. Wouldn’t you agree?_

Mai must have told Azula that she had told him she could bend. He wondered how that conversation had gone down. “She should of told me,” he whispered. But he understood why she hadn’t. 

_Smellerbee makes daily demonstrations that the Fire Nation must go. Kori, the mayor’s daughter, is of the opinion that the Harmony Restoration Movement is ostrich horse dung. They clash almost daily. Mai and I decided it would be best if we separated. Mai impressed Smellerbee with her knife skills, while I have attempted to befriend Kori. She doesn’t really have a group to infiltrate like Smellerbee or Suki._

She was having trouble. He couldn’t remember anyone but Ty Lee and Mai whom she had called friends, and then they weren’t. Except maybe Ty Lee…he wasn’t sure what was going on with her and his sister. Mai had only said that Ty Lee was in love with Azula. Even after everything, he had asked. Mai rolled her eyes, and nodded. 

It must have been hard for Azula when Ty Lee had left to rejoin the Kyoshi Warriors.  Maybe he could request their services in light of  the assassination attempts. If Ty Lee was one of the ones chosen to go, then what a happy coincidence that would be. He clenched his fist so the flame that burned from his palm turned to smoke, and Azula’s secret message disappeared. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Not all things had to be done alone—he wouldn’t be where he was if he hadn’t had a lot of help—but this was something that both Azula and Ty Lee had to figure out on their own. 

Azula sent her letters randomly, but when more than a month had gone by, he was concerned that something was wrong. He was not surprised when he got his second scroll from Mai. He was almost wondering why Azula hadn’t written until he read the letter. The script was hasty, and barely legible. _The Earth King is coming with his army_.

Zuko read it three times. He had heard from one of the Earth King’s ministers just a few weeks ago. They were not pleased with the tension in Yu Dao. No one was pleased with it, but Zuko had assured them he was doing his best to fulfill the treaty he had made with the Earth King after his coronation as Fire Lord. They had wanted to know what, exactly, he was doing, and Zuko could only say that he had several operatives infiltrating the various political factions to determine the best way to withdraw without causing further tension. They hadn’t looked particularly pleased, so in a way this news wasn’t a surprise. Still, it would have been better if he had come to Zuko on a diplomatic mission instead of going to Yu Dao himself. 

The Earth King couldn’t find Azula there. The history between them would cause an even bigger problem. Even if he didn’t find Azula, Zuko feared what the Earth King might do to those he considered Fire Nation. The Earth King had said he would do whatever needed to be done should Zuko fail to act. He had not elaborated further. 

Zuko swore quietly to himself, spread a piece of parchment, dipped his brush in ink, and paused. He chewed the end of his brush. This was a crossroads. Once a choice was made, it would be very difficult to undo whatever happened after. He knew that even though what his great grandfather had done was wrong, there were still Fire Nation citizens under his protection in the city. He knew that he could not march against the Earth King—the war was over, and he would not have his legacy be the start of another 100 year war that would cause him to lose the friends he had made during the course of his exile. With a sharp nod, he addressed the paper to one of his most trusted generals to begin moving out towards Yu Dao. He urged the general to be discrete. This was not a mission of war. It was simply…a precaution. They were to remain out of sight of the city.

He sent that letter, and then stretched the parchment for his second message. His hand shook as he addressed it to Aang. _I need your help_ , he began. 

A knock at the door startled him. His hand jerked, and the brush went wide, smearing a path of ink across the face of the parchment. One of his guards rushed him. “The Avatar is here.” 

That did not sound good. “I’m coming.” Zuko left is hair down, and wore only a simple red tunic edged in gold flame. He was not like his father, who preferred military regalia. He was not like his father who yearned for war. 

They were waiting for him in the throne room. It was different without the flickering flames. Li and Lo had told him once how it had burned blue, and he had seen it when it burned under his father’s influence. The sun shone through the windows his father had long covered with thick curtains emblazoned with the Fire Nation emblem. Zuko had had them removed, and now the throne room was filled with the golden light of the sun. He breathed in deeply, appreciating the warmth of it on his skin, connecting to his bending like the Masters had taught him.  
He felt prepared for anything, despite Aang’s face pinched with worry. Katara and Sokka were with him, and they looked mildly judgmental but he had come to expect that of them occassionally. “What’s wrong?” he asked, because there was no way all three of them would be here if everything was fine. 

“The Earth King asked me to meet him at Yu Dao,” Aang said. 

Zuko nodded. “I had heard there was tension between supporters of the Harmony Restoration Movement and those who don’t believe that’s the best route.” 

Aang squinted at him. 

“Azula and Mai are there.” It wouldn’t hurt if they knew that. 

“What?” Katara asked, hand on her hip while at the same time Sokka yelled her name like he couldn’t quite believe what he had heard. 

“They wanted to know more about what was going on instead of relying on reports.” 

“Do you think that she was the best choice?” Aang said. 

Zuko sighed. “She wanted to go, and besides Mai is with her. I can’t keep her here like she’s my prisoner. She’s my sister, and she’s changed.” Like the army, it might be better not to mention that she had her bending back and that she could do a type of bending with her spirit world given third eye he’d never heard of before. Maybe Aang had heard of it, considering the Fire Nation had been different before he got himself frozen in ice. Maybe Aang wouldn’t care she could bend again, but Katara and Sokka would care, and he couldn’t argue about it not when they had to resolve the political tensions in Yu Dao. 

“I guess we’ll see when we get there.” Sokka folded his arms against his chest. “Hopefully it won’t be another Ba Sing Se situation.” 

He was tempted, but Zuko didn’t reply further. He turned back to Aang. “Mai had said she had heard the Earth King was on his way. I just received the news.” 

“I was afraid that the Earth King had not extended an invitation to you to meet us at Yu Dao. You need to come with us so we can stop this becoming an all out conflict.” 

Zuko nodded. “I was preparing to go myself, but I’m glad you’re here. It will be a faster and more pleasant journey with you and Appa.”

“Nice to see that you missed us for our wonderful company.” Sokka sniffed, barely able to keep his face straight.

For the first time, Aang smiled. “It’ll be just like old times.”

Zuko hoped he was right.


	6. Chapter Six

Mai and Azula had opted to stay in separate rooms at an inn after they arrived. It was night, and Azula could not sleep. A restless energy took her, itching under her skin like a fever. She kicked off her rough woolen blankets, and paced the room. Her fingers feathered against each other. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing here, even though it had been her idea. What had she been thinking, coming here without even a plan? 

She rummaged in her pack and took out three half burned candles. She placed them on the wooden dresser that also propped up a mirror she had already covered with a cloth. Azula steadied the candles in their brass holders. With a light touch of her fingers, the candles sparked into flame. She cracked her neck, closed her eyes, and breathed in slow, deep breaths. The flames grew and diminished in time with her breathing. Her heart slowed, the fever left her body, and when Azula opened her eyes the restlessness had been let go, replaced with the bone weary exhaustion that only came from a long travel on the road. 

Dragging the covers from the floor, she shrugged them onto her shoulders and slumped into the mattress. It was stuffed with straw that rustled under her weight. She hadn’t slept on something so rough since she had journeyed to find their mother. She turned on her side, curling her knees tightly to her chest. Her father’s voice whispered in her ear, “And suffering shall be your teacher.”

“Shhhh,” Azula whispered. 

Sleep was still a long time coming. Azula forced herself to still rise with the sun, and to go through the forms she once had done with her brother. She missed the gardens, the shade from the fruit trees, the soft tickle of the grass against her feet. But she did them anyways, and wondered if Zuko still did too. 

Mai was already at one of the tables, picking at her breakfast. “Do we have a plan?” she asked when Azula joined her, a pile of fruit on her plate. 

Azula shrugged.

“Great.” Mai sighed. 

“We’ll walk around. Something will happen.”

“Nothing ever happens.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “Something will happen here.”

After their breakfast, they wandered the streets of Yu Dao. For some reason, Azula had assumed it was just like any other Earth Kingdom Colony: small and unimpressive. Yu Dao could more properly be called a city. People thronged its wide streets. Its markets were full of stalls selling merchandise ranging from wide bolts of silk in reds, pinks, greens, browns, and golds to elaborate clothing in the hanfu, kimono, and hanbok styles. Fruit vendors sold lychee nuts and kumquats. There were vendors from the Water Tribe selling seal jerky and jewelry made of whale bone and stones worn smooth by the ocean.

“Everything is so…colorful.” Mai held her hand to her stomach, mouth down-turned in distaste. 

“Let’s go,” Azula said. They weren’t going to find what they were looking for here. Children played in the well paved streets: firebenders, earthbenders, and nonbenders. They kicked a ball around made of thick leather, laughing and shrieking so loudly that Mai had to put her fingers in her ears.

Eventually they found their way towards the craft district. Potters tempered their clay in kilns shaped by earthbenders, and firebenders tended the blazing forges that melted metal shaped into gleaming silverware, weapons, or sculptures. Azula lingered beside a gleaming bronze dragon, its long tail curled around its haunches, its bearded snout nearly smiling. “That’s not for sale!” someone shouted at her, and she moved on, Mai trailing behind, yawning into her palm. 

They passed another smithy. A young man, not much older than Lu Ten must have been, struggled with the bellows. His eyes were wet, though whether from the smoke in the air or frustration Azula couldn’t tell. Mai walked onward but Azula lingered. Mai stopped only to call out, “I’m not waiting.” 

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Azula said. 

The young man had stopped trying to work the bellows and was now sitting down, his back braced against the cold hearth. Azula sauntered forward so that her shadow fell over him. She placed her hands on her hips and stared down at him. He looked up, startled. “What’s the matter? You seem upset.”  
He swallowed hard. “My father is trusting me to run the forge during his illness. I can’t get the fire going.”

“Why don’t you bend it?”

“I can’t.”

“Or get someone else to?”

His eyes became downcast. 

“Too proud to ask for help?” Azula asked. “Well, you shouldn’t be. Everyone needs help at some point in their lives. You can only hope there is someone there to give it.” She held out her hand, and the man took it. She gripped his wrist and hauled him to his feet, and he protested only a little. Breathing deeply, she spread her legs in a wide squat. Slowly, she guided her breath through her, to her stomach. The sun seemed to melt on her skin. She felt connected to her bending in a way she hadn’t felt since she was very, very young. “You might want to stand back.” The words came from her as if from a distance, and she wondered if she was setting herself up for failure. She hadn’t managed to purposely bend fire hot enough to warrant a warning since her fire was blue. Maybe it was because of the sun, or maybe it was because of why she was choosing to bend, but she couldn’t let that doubt or uncertainty take root. She raised her hands, and plunged forward. 

Hot flames, hotter than she had managed to stoke them in her room at the palace, burned from her palms. The fire in the forge burst into life. The young man scrambled and began to work the bellows. That was right—fire couldn’t survive without air. “It needs to be hotter!” he cried out.

Azula bended the flame again, her leg kicking outward towards the hearth. 

“Again!” 

They fell into a rhythm. Azula incorporated the spiraling moves she had seen Aang use so she wasn’t just standing in front of the forge like a dummy. She learned to recognize when the fire needed something more from her, and soon the young man began to pour the metal she had helped heat enough to melt. He plunged it into water, and it hissed as steam billowed skyward. The hammer rang against the anvil, and she listened to it shake the ground beneath her feet, making the flames dance with each tremor. 

She removed her tunic so she was only in her simple undershirt. Sweat dripped from her face, and she was glad for her headband so it wouldn’t fall into her eyes. Soot smudged her skin. Though she had fought many times, she had never had to perform so much sustained bending. She was exhausted when the young man told her he was finished for the day. “How can I ever repay you?” 

“Oh you know—” her gaze fell on the line of knives he had made. They gleamed in the sun. Their shape was slim, and she could see them fly through the air, sharp and true and deadly from Mai’s hand. She pointed. “Teach me how to make a set of knives like that, and we’ll be even.”  
He bowed to her. “Done.”    

They made arrangements to meet the next day. The sun was already setting when Azula left the forge behind and wandered back towards the inn. She stretched, her hands reaching towards the sky, and she breathed deeply. Even though the moon peered at her with its pale face, she felt she could do anything, as if she were as strong as she once had been. She was tempted to test it, to see if she could forge a blue heart to her flame, but she didn’t because what if she was wrong? Almost wasn’t good enough.

Mai was seated at one of the low tables. Her plate was only half full, and she poked at her noodles with her chopsticks. Azula dropped beside her, suddenly realizing that she was parched with thirst. 

“I told you nothing would happen today.”

Azula smirked behind the cup of tea one of the servers brought her. Mai would think differently soon. “Give it time. You never know what tomorrow might bring.”

Mai sighed and pushed her half eaten food towards Azula. “Here. I’m going to bed.” 

Azula wanted to ask if she had saved the food just for her or if she truly had not finished her own, but that was another question she didn’t want to know the answer to. 

She went to sleep that night without any trouble, and though her muscles ached when she woke, she did not mind. Not all pain was bad. She met the young man, and he showed her how to make strong steel. That took most of the morning, and their combined bending knowledge—his of earth, hers of fire. He was able to bend certain impurities from the metal, and then she heated it while he blew air through the molten lead. She wondered, as sweat dripped down her nose, if he knew about the blind earthbender’s affinity for metal bending.

He ladled the metal into molds, to shape them into the knives that would soon be Mai’s. 

“The rest will need to be finished tomorrow,” he said. 

Azula bowed to him and then returned to the streets to do what she was supposed to have been doing: getting a feel for the state of the city. Though, based on what she had just experienced, she figured that she had been right when she had told Zuko the Harmony Restoration Movement wasn’t for Yu Dao. 

She wondered where Mai was. Probably bored somewhere, yawning dreadfully. A commotion drew her down what appeared to be one of the more wealthier streets. A gang of urchins had clambered onto the storefronts, clamoring for attention. They were only kids. One of them, smaller and shorter than the rest with spiky hair and strips of red paint across their cheeks, seemed to be the leader. “The Fire Nation’s gotta go!” they cried. 

The others took up the chant. 

Patrons gathered to the window, while the store owners went outside, stamped their feet, and demanded that the kids go before they called the authorities. 

“We’re the freedom fighters!” the leader yelled. “We’re on your side. Why are you trying to shut us up? A Fire Nation Prince tried to shut up our former leader, they tried to silence him, and now he’s dead! Is that what you want?”  
Azula frowned. Were they talking about Zuko? She’d have to ask him about that when she returned. 

“Tell us what the Fire Nation did, Smellerbee!” this came from one of the kids on a nearby roof, legs swinging over the ledge. 

“That’s a fine idea, Sneers. I’ll tell you what the Fire Nation did. They burned our homes!” A cry of rage went up from the kids on the roofs and a few of the looker ons. “They killed our parents!” The kids gripped their shirts over their hearts, yelling a cry that was only too familiar to Azula. It carried rage and fear and grief. Azula felt her face twist. “They left us orphans!” There was no chorus this time, only a long pause that carried their heavy breathing. “We struggled to survive in the forest, doing all we could against the Fire Nation. We were betrayed by the Earth King, we were betrayed by the Avatar when he tried to stop us, but we won’t betray you! I may only be a young girl, but I promise you this: we will make sure that the Fire Nation leaves this city, and every other city!” 

The kids cheered. Some people in the gathering crowd clapped their hands. By this time,  the authorities began to arrive in their thick boots and heavy spears. The leader, Smellerbee, put their fingers to their mouth and whistled. They scattered, and were gone. The authorities dispersed the crowd.

“Move along,” they said. “Move along.” 

Azula shuffled her feet. The crowd grew bored and went about their business. As the dust cleared, Azula saw Mai standing across the street, leaning against a pillar that carried an unlit lantern. Her arms were crossed over her chest. Her mouth was even more down-turned than usual. Quickly, Azula crossed to join her. 

Mai’s gaze slid from the distance where Smellerbee had vanished to Azula. “You’re filthy.” She sniffed. “And you smell terrible.”

Azula flicked her fingers at Mai, and she stepped backwards. “And here you said that nothing would happen.”

“I don’t want to fight a bunch of kids,” Mai said. 

Azula laughed. “Like we aren’t. Besides we aren’t here to fight.” She dropped her voice in case there were nosy ears about. “We’re here to spy.” 

Mai groaned. 

Without realizing she was doing it until it was done, Azula bumped shoulders with Mai—and Mai did not recoil. “If you want something to do, you should find a hobby.”

“Let me guess. Your hobby is what’s put you in your current state. No thanks.” 

Azula could barely contain her smile. Mai, who was always complaining about knives she had stolen, was going to love her gift. Or maybe not. Azula could never tell with Mai these days anymore. She could just accept the gift and say something like, gee thanks, and that would be the end of that.

Azula took a deep breath. Even if that were to happen, that didn’t matter. It only mattered what she did, and making a knife set for Mai was a nice thing to do. There were no expectations to it—no expectation that Mai would finally forgive Azula, or that they would become friends again. A knife set couldn’t hold all of that, just as Azula couldn’t. She released the breath she had taken, along with every imagination of Mai accepting the gift with friendship. “Perhaps you could take up something a little more your style. Needlepoint, perhaps? You do have skill with sharp objects.”

Mai sighed, her eyes almost rolling. Azula shrugged. “Careful, Mai. If you don’t develop additional interests folks might find you predictable. Or worse, boring.” 

Mai’s eyes shot daggers at Azula. “Perhaps we should focus more of our efforts on why we’re here.”

“I doubt that Smellerbee—” what kind of name was that — “is an actual threat.” Mai opened her mouth, and Azula held up her hand. “Though at the risk of miscalculating and otherwise underestimating someone, we’ll keep an eye her.”

“Terrific.” Mai yawned. “More standing around and doing nothing.”

“Neutral jing. We wait, we listen, and then we strike.” Azula struck her own palm for emphasis. 

They lingered, in case Smellerbee returned, but when it became obvious that would not be the case, they returned to their inn and ate. The next morning, Azula continued working on the knives for Mai. They were almost finished—they only needed to be polished and sharpened. Azula wandered the stalls at the market until she found a simple wooden case to present them to Mai. If Mai liked the gift, she would hide the knives somewhere on her person. She had what seemed an unending supply of them, but Azula hoped these knives would be the ones she liked the best. And even if they weren’t, well Mai wouldn’t mind having something to throw or twirl or generally keep her occupied. 

They didn’t run into Smellerbee again until a few days later, in a different part of town, a poorer part. She had more of a crowd this time, and there were more affirmative murmurings. Azula and Mai watched from the shadows, arms folded. Smellerbee had just started a call and response chant when another young woman stepped forward. Her hands were clenched at her sides. The ground shivered and split in thin threads from her feet. Azula frowned. She was obviously an earthbender, though one who was hardly in control of her emotions. 

She pointed a finger at Smellerbee. “How dare you waltz into this city that isn’t even your home with your know-nothing politics and hatred!” 

“And who are you?” Smellerbee asked. “A Fire Nation girl who doesn’t know what she’s talking about? Are you going to throw a fireball to try and silence me?”

Azula wondered how Smellerbee could have missed the earth bending. Maybe she was too busy trying to influence the crowd. 

“I’m Kori.” The young woman drew herself up to her full height. “You may have recognized me as the mayor’s daughter if you were even from around here.”

“I don’t make it a habit to remember the names of our oppressors,” Smellerbee said.

“My father may be Fire Nation, but my mother is Earth Kingdom. What do you have to say about that?”

“That your mother’s a traitor.” 

The crowd collectively held its breath. Kori stamped her feet, and screamed at Smellerbee. Kori flung out her hands, legs wide and strong, and a chunk of rock, still paved with brick, ripped from the ground. It hurtled towards Smellerbee, but the young girl drew her sword and struck it wide from her.

“And you’re a traitor too,” she said with an indignant sniff. Smellerbee turned back to the crowd. “And who’s surprised that the Fire Nation’s in charge? You have the power to stop this? If you’re interested in joining the Freedom Fighters, stand with us next time we’re here.” As one, Smellerbee and her gang of Freedom Fighters sprinted across the rooftops.

Azula and Mai shared a glance. They had been friends for a long time, had fought and plotted beside each other. It was a relief that not all of that had gone away. Mai knew exactly what to do when Azula jerked her head at Smellerbee’s retreating form. Mai nodded once, hands tucked in her sleeves, and darted after them, barely imperceptible from the shadows in her dark clothes. 

Kori still raged in the center of the street. Her hands clenched in fists, her breaths came in ragged gasps. Azula narrowed her eyes at her. She knew this type of girl. Mai had been that type of girl, and so had Ty Lee. They were girls with an anger inside them that had found no release until Azula gave it to them. Girls who needed something so desperately, but could hardly give expression to it because they had never been allowed to recognize it in themselves, much less describe it. Girls who needed someone to recognize their value, girls who needed to be seen as special and wanted and needed.  
It wasn’t until it was too late that Azula realized she had been one of those girls too. 

She shook the memories from her. 

Whatever had happened in the past, Azula knew how to get them on her side. To be her friend. 

Something seemed wrong. She could almost feel Mai’s perpetual disapproving gaze on her, even though she knew Mai was long gone, because Mai was that type of girl—maybe not as much as before. She could also hear Mai’s voice, saying that they weren’t friends. She had heard Mai and Ty Lee argue on their first journey about whether or not Azula had really been their friend. She had pretended not to, of course, but she had. 

Oh well. She had a job to do, and Kori was going to help her do it. Zuko would see that the Harmony Restoration Movement was not right thing to do here, even if it had been elsewhere. The past could never be undone. The homes that the Fire Nation had burned down, the families they had killed. Those things had happened. Azula couldn’t undo that, and neither could Zuko. The weight of it was incomprehensible to her, but she also knew that guilt didn't matter to anyone, that it didn't help anyone.

“You’re doing what she wants you to do.” Azula remained where she was, leaning against the storefront, pretending to examine her nails. They were filthy, and once that would have bothered her. 

Kori flung around. Her cheeks were hot with rage. “What do you mean?”

Azula shrugged. “Your anger makes her look rational, and it makes you look crazy.”

“What do you know about it?” Kori snarled. 

“Oh I’ve been called crazy more than a few times.” Azula gave her her most winning smile. 

“I’m not going to censor myself just because some ragamuffins will call me crazy,” Kori said. 

Azula pushed away from the wall, arms folded across her chest. “You’re the daughter of the mayor. You don’t have the luxury of saying whatever you want whenever you want however you want. Don’t change who you are, but be smart. Don’t give them ammunition to use against you. Don’t orchestrate your own downfall.”

“Who are you?” Kori asked. “And why do you care?”

Azula laughed. “I don’t care. I’d just thought I’d share before going on my way. And I’m Ursa.” She hadn’t consciously thought about using her mother’s name, but it came easily. She had been Ursa before. It would be easy to be Ursa again. 

“You don’t live here?”

Azula stretched. “No, I don’t. I’m visiting with my friend, who’s spending some time with her family. She didn’t want to go by herself.”

“Maybe we’ll see each other again.” 

“Maybe we will,” Azula said. “In the meantime, don’t let Smellerbee get under your skin. She only knows her story, not yours.”  
Kori nodded. “You’re right. Well, see you around, maybe.” 

Definitely, Azula thought. She wondered how much success Mai had with tracking Smellerbee.

On her way back to the inn, Azula dropped by the forge, and did the final touches on Mai’s gift. She also helped the blacksmith with some of his other commissions, as he was behind on them because of his father’s illness, and as trade for his help with the knives. It was likely his father would be recovered soon, though Azula couldn’t tell if he mentioned that because he was still reluctant to ask for help or if it was the truth.

Mai was already at the inn. She held a cloth in one hand, and a threaded needle with the other. The thread was black, and it appeared that Mai was practicing the same stitch over and over. That was very much like her. Get the basics down, then make something out of it. Azula hid the box containing the knives she made behind her as she slid into the chair opposite Mai. “What did you find out?” Azula asked.

“I’m now considered a freedom fighter,” Mai said. “I tracked them to their hideout outside the city.” She frowned, and undid one of her stitches. 

Azula was impressed. It wasn’t what she had had in mind but it made sense for them to split up, to gather information from both sides. “How’d you get them to trust you?”

“They don’t. Not yet at least. But I showed them my knife work and they liked it enough to let me join them on a probationary bases. They’re just kids who’ve lost their parents. I don’t think they really know what they’re doing.” 

“That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous,” Azula said. 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

Mai didn’t elaborate, but Azula figured that she was struggling with something that Zuko had been struggling with. Their loss was real. They may not bear the scar of their hurt on their face, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. But she knew this—the Fire Nation had done much. They hadn’t asked for permission. They had come and taken what they wanted because they thought they had a divine right to rule, a destiny to share how great they were. What a lie that was. Shortly after she had returned home, Zuko had told her how Avatar Roku had warned Sozin, and how he hadn’t listened. But they had a chance to listen now. Of course, Smellerbee and Kori were saying completely different things. That was for Zuko to figure out as Firelord.  
It had been a long time coming, but Azula didn’t envy him. 

She would have made a terrible Firelord. One of her final words to her father had been to burn it down to the ground. Her throat thickened, and she focused on her breathing. 

“I have something for you, Mai.”

Mai’s eyes flickered briefly from her cloth and back down again. 

Azula put the box onto the table. 

“A box. How fascinating,” Mai said.

Azula rolled her eyes, and undid the latch, flipping it open. The knives gleamed. They really did look good. They were simple, but they were well made.

Azula felt pride in her work as she leaned forward, barely able to hide how much she wanted Mai to like them too. 

Mai put her needlework down. She looked interested, which was a good sign from Mai. She tested the weight of one of the daggers on her fingers, nodding when she saw the perfect balance of it. 

“I made them myself,” Azula said. She paused, then added, “with the help of a blacksmithing earthbender. Anyway, I thought you’d like it since you’re always grumbling about the knives I’ve stolen from you in the past.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

“Gee. Thanks.” Mai put the knife away, and closed the box. But at least she took it with her when she retired for the evening. That was good enough for Azula.


End file.
